My daughter and I are party animals. But at the moment, we are at very different ends of the celebration spectrum. While my dear girl heads off every weekend for a wedding, I’m dressing for a divorce party (I’ve been to four in the past month). As she throws confetti and catches bouquets, I’m helping set fire to wedding photos and stabbing tiered cakes to death in a shower of crumbs.

I’ve no doubt I’ll be licking the icing off many more Dead Groom cake toppers, too, because silver separations are skyrocketing. Back in the 1980s and ’90s, marriages spanning 20 years or more accounted for about one in five divorces. Today, close to a third of all divorcees in Australia are older than 50.

Recent research commissioned by Australian Seniors suggests that “empty nest syndrome” is the top reason older people call it quits. Couples who’ve exclusively communicated about overdue homework for decades suddenly find they have nothing to say to each other over dinner. Others have differing ideas around retirement: he wants to buy a motorbike with a sidecar and criss-cross America, while she wants to eat yoghurt in a yurt at a yoga retreat.

In many marriages, a slow-drip ennui can set in. If you can salvage your HMS Relationship, it’s so worth it. But if your marital mantra has become “how do I hate thee, let me count the ways”, there’s no longer any stigma about jumping overboard. When you reach the point where it’s never “for better” and always “for worse”, it’s time to shout, “Stop this marriage! I want to get off!”

All my girlfriends have had rock-solid reasons for unknotting their nuptials. One discovered her spouse lying face down, naked, on his tennis instructress. Her husband’s marriage vows clearly should have said, “Till death us do part … or someone hotter comes along.”

Another hubby explained that he could only really enjoy sex if he brought along his best friend … a gay manicurist called Merlin. An actress friend cited irreconcilable differences, especially when it came to dental hygiene. Apparently, her spouse seemed to think it was okay to put another woman’s nether regions into his mouth.

Affairs, alcoholism, losing life savings on Bitcoin, conversion to various cults – the divorcee’s gripe list is long. But the first step to female healing has become a cathartic celebration of cake smashing and wedding dress slashing. Instead of going for a medal in the Women’s Long-Distance Cross Bearing, dumped wives are going on a Girls’ Night Out instead. No more sobbing into self-help books titled Why Husbands Leave Their Wives and Why It’s All Your Fault, You Fat, Middle-Aged Frump. No. Women are now dyeing their wedding veils black, creating ring coffins and kick-starting a sensational second act with a little chandelier swinging.

As a divorce party guest, your job is to help trash your girlfriend’s ex. Something along the lines of “the man’s a snake, only taller”.

KATHY LETTE

Most divorce parties are held in wine bars, but last week my pal Sarah chose a male strip club. I have nothing against naked men. Hell, I wish I did! (Mind you, when a naked man is dancing,
not everything stops when he does, making this dream within your reach.)